Climbing, Falling, Standing Still
by Sidelong
Summary: Yeah, strong language, etc. SPOILERS for the end of the game. Takes place after the end of the game, and it's done from the Turks' perspectives. RR, sil vous plait.
1. Elena: In the Dark and the Ruin

Light.

Somewhere, someone was coughing. Ragged, wet-throat gasps that caught and tore soft tissues in the esophagus. She tasted blood.

Light.

Pinkish-orange and sunsetty. She'd been at the beach once, when the light was like this. A sun-warmed towel and drinks with little umbrellas.

GOD GET ME OUT OUT GOT TO GET OUT OH GOD PLEASE

Elena blinked, coughed, and spat blood onto the concrete block pinning one arm to her chest. Something sharp was digging just above her kidneys and she didn't even want to think about her left leg, it hurt so bad.

Light.

She was looking up. Light. Skylight.

OH GOD SAVE ME SOMEONE PLEASE CLIMB CLIMB BITCH CLIMB

Her free arm scrabbled helplessly above her head, caught on something, and pulled. Someone was screaming in her ear as a knee bent forward like it was supposed to, not back the way it had been pulled.

It smelled like blood and lighter fluid. Something sparked against her cheek, made her yip, swallow, and the screaming stopped.

That arm just kept pulling and in a minute the other one was loose, dangling down near her waist and when she raised it to help its twin it was red and wet and OH GOD JUST KEEP CLIMING ELENA ELENA CHRISTINA JACOBSEN DONT THINK JUST **CLIMB**

She pulled up eight inches, maybe a foot, stared into the wet ruin of a half-smashed Shinra employee and puked into what remained of its eye socket. When she ran out of things to throw up, she was crying, sobbing hollowly and feeling puke run down the inside of her blouse, between her breasts and into her pants.

YOURE GOING TO DIE DOWN HERE IN THE DARK AND THE RUIN

GET OUT

GET OUT

"LET ME OUT!" she screamed and it tore at her throat and echoed off metal and wire, but it felt good and she was pulling and pulling, putting her hands on hot things and shocking things and things that squished but she didn't care, she was climbing and climbing and screaming to god to save me, let me out, please god, just please-

Her arms ran out of things to grab and she'd slid back six inches before she realized she'd reached the surface. Her hands brushed cold breeze and broken glass and gripped like a newborn at the breast.

Her head emerged and the sunset blinded her. Her shoulders. Her back, breasts, belly, her legs, and she was free. She was whispering something that might have been a prayer, curling into a ball and crying until someone called her name once, again.

"Rude?" She croaked into the whipping night breeze.

"Elena-"

Then she was on her knees, crying out with the pain in her leg and back and body, scrabbling through the wreckage and trash and body parts, digging and digging.

"Rude, keep talking, say something to me! Rude! I need to hear where you are!"

"Here," he called, and she cleared a layer of debris, something that might have been a computer monitor, and his face stared pale and tight out of the dark hole in the ground.

"Are you all right?" Though that was probably the most ironic question she could have asked.

"I'll live. Reno's down here. He-" Swallow. "He's okay. Unconscious."

He had lost a lens from his sunglasses, and one eye beseeched, light green gray and somehow more intimate than that time she'd accidentally walked in on him in the shower.

"Grab my hand."

She did, trying to ignore two of the fingers with new extra joints that made Rude shout as she yanked up and up and up, fell backwards on her ass, and grabbed his hand again. Pulled. Pulled. One arm came free and Rude pulled himself the rest of the way out of the ground, pulling Reno by that damn red ponytail he insisted he kept just to piss her off. Reno, Rude, her only family, even if they weren't exactly friends, they were family, they were alive, here out of the mouth of the Apocalypse.

"Rude," she kept saying. "Rude. Tell me you're okay."

"I'm okay," he kept saying. "Are you okay? Are you okay?"

"I'm okay, in case anyone was interested," Reno muttered from the ground.

"Hey." Rude looked down with interest. "How're the ribs?"

"Broken. You?"

"Broken fingers. Broke my sunglasses. Otherwise just cuts and scrapes." 

Elena found her voice. "Ditto."

"Elena's missing half the skin on her back and has something wrong with her leg. Don't listen to her."

One of Reno's pupils was bigger than the other. "Both alive, right?"

They answered in unison. "Right."

"The sky's on fire."

They both craned their necks to see what he meant, and the Highwind flashed crimson sunset of its metal underbelly as it passed over them. Rude waved, it began to circle back and Elena let her body lower down to the ground, resting one hand on Reno's stomach.

"Stay home when it rains," he said firmly.

"I think you have a concussion," Rude said, sitting down on the Turk's other side.

"I think our lives are over."

The sentence was so morbidly lucid Elena had to check and make sure Reno wasn't dropping off to sleep. She bit her lower lip.

He was right- the sky really was on fire. Already there was less of that Midgar green in the horizon, and over the sea there were fat black rain clouds rolling in, like Nature herself sending in a cleanup crew. For now, however- for now the sky was red like the underside of a tongue, stroking inexorably against the teeth of the mountains.

They sat quietly atop the ruins of the Shinra Building, waiting for their enemies to come rescue them. As the Highwind began the slow arc back, Elena's eyelids began to droop. She stretched an arm out to catch Rude's sleeve, sprawled her body over the wreckage and dust. Reno made a disagreeable noise, but didn't move when she laid her head on his leg.

"I think," Rude spoke, making both of them jump. "the sun's setting. But it's going to come up tomorrow."

"Maybe." Reno concurred.

"I think we can find something to do then. Something new. Better."

"Yeah."

Elena was asleep, her head on Reno's thigh.


	2. Reno: The Business of Revenge

"Shit fire damn it fuck OW Elena!"

Elena snorted, tugged the tape a little tighter around Reno's ribcage, making him squeak in a _most _undignified way.

"God _damn_ it, woman, friggin' Hojo's apprentice!"

Reaching over, Rude placed a heavy, splinted hand over Reno's face.

"Thank you," he heard Elena say. The door squeaked open and the hand dropped off his face.

Enter Strife. When the Cure spells had kicked in and fixed up most of that concussion, Reno had spent a good ten minutes fuming about being rescued by Cloud freakin' Strife and company. He'd almost rather be stuck in the rubble that had once been the Shinra building than be up here in Cid Highwind's amazing flying machine, enjoying the luxury of its only conference room unbound and free of charge. Almost.

At least Strife wasn't being smug about it. Actually, he kind of looked like shit. Tired, sore, some of the shine rubbed off his face. Like someone had stepped on him.

"You all need anything?" Strife's voice was the low creak that came from screaming for days at a time.

The three Turks looked at each other. Reno took the opportunity to shrug back into his shirt, wincing as newly aligned ribs flexed against the tape. At the moment, all he really wanted was a tequila sunrise, but somehow he doubted that would go over well. And Elena said he had no self-control.

"Whenever Red XIII is done with the rest of you, my leg needs some attention," Elena finally said. Said leg was propped up on the glossy conference table, theoretically to reduce swelling but actually because she couldn't bend it to fit under her chair. It was swollen enough that she couldn't get her pants off- they'd slit one leg up to mid-thigh instead of just rolling the cuff up over her knee, so Reno was willing to bet she was in a fair amount of pain.

"He's almost done with Barret. Vincent's taking over, so Red'll be here in a minute."

Reno opened his mouth to ask how Vincent could help dig shrapnel out of someone's bicep, then remembered the claw and shut it again. Winced. Nothing like battlefield medicine.

Strife didn't seem to have anything else to say, but he stood still, staring at a blank space on the conference room wall. Another three-way glance traveled the Turk circuit. Carefully, very slowly, Rude raised a hand and waved it in front of the ex-SOLDIER's face.

He blinked, started just a bit, and looked down at the three Turks seated at the table. "Sorry. I- I'm a little tired."

"I bet," Reno offered, not quite managing to keep the bitterness out of his voice. Savior or no, Coud Strife and AVALANCHE had single-handedly taken everything Reno had worked for his entire adult life and thrown it away.

Cloud glared at him for a long moment, then dropped his gaze.

"How did AVALANCHE end up?" Elena asked, so gently Reno wasn't sure she had spoken at all.

Strife met her eyes for a moment and his were huge, darker than usual. "Aeris is dead."

Elena exhaled slowly. "I'm sorry."

What the hell was this? Reno chewed his lower lip furiously. Sure, AVALANCHE must have sacrificed, toiled, suffered, et cetera et cetera, but what about the Turks? They'd lost Tseng, Rufus, their whole way of life because a group of interfering country hicks had decided to practice their bomb-making techniques. And here was Elena, buddying up to Strife like she wanted to join the revolution! Did she even care? Had Tseng conveniently slipped her mind?

Well, Reno had seen this kind of thing before. She could be as sweet and charming as she wanted, but when push came to shove, she was still a Turk. AVALANCHE had only picked them up out of pity, and pity only went so far. Soon said hicks would be just as likely to boot all three of them off the observation deck as invite them to sit down for tea.

Strife nodded grimly. "Thank you. Red'll be here in a minute."

He was halfway out the door when Rude called: "Thanks for the pickup."

Strife paused, nodded, and left. The door slid shut behind him.

Reno spun in his chair to face the other Turks. "What the fuck was that?"

"What?" Elena's eyebrows buried themselves in her hair.

"You two! You practically invited him to the Shinra memorial Yule party!"

Rude spun his one-lensed sunglasses on the shiny table. "Reno, what the hell are you talking about?"

"You two all snuggling up to AVALANCHE like they didn't blow up the Shinra building!"

"They didn't," Elena pointed out. "Meteor did."

"Okay, bad example. But am I the only one who sees the connection between Cloud Strife and the end of Shinra?"

"No. But Shinra built the gun, loaded it, and handed it to Sephiroth. Cloud Strife just helped him aim it," Rude said in his usual matter-of-fact burr. "Cloud just helped him aim it."

"Isn't that enough?"

"As you sow..." Elena murmured.

"_Please_, Linney, don't go all metaphysical on me, you know I don't believe in that crap."

"I'm just saying, Shinra ruined Clouds life. Maybe even the General's. Sephiroth's. Don't call me Linney."

"So it's okay for them to ruin _our_ lives?"

"Listen to yourself," Rude cut in. "We're in the business of revenge, Reno. We never cared where, why, or how we did our job. Why should they?"

Reno shut up. Rude had a point. He wanted to argue, though. Say it was _wrong_ of AVALANCHE to rip his job, his world out from under him like he was nothing compared to their great cause. It _was_ wrong, he believed that. And AVALANCHE didn't care, he believed that, too. But Elena and Rude? They were acting like they were fine with an upended life and no job, no more Turks, and he said as much.

"No," Elena said. "I don't know what Rude's thinking, but I'm not _happy_ to be out of a job. There's nothing we can do about it, though. Rufus is dead, Tseng is- Tseng is dead. All we can do now is go on, whether we like it or not."

Rude nodded emphatically, almost in perfect rhythm with the soft scratching on the door. Being most intact, Rude got up and hitched his ass over to open it. The tawny red lionlike creature, Red XIII, padded silently into the room.

"I heard someone needed a doctor," it growled. He. _He _growled. Reno was still working on seeing him as a thinking being, instead of the scarred, snarling experimental specimen Reno had once or twice glimpsed changing elevators on the laboratory floor. It hadn't changed- well, maybe a little more muscular, but it was still one-eyed, wild-maned, and had those memorably sharp teeth. _He._ _His_ sharp teeth. Shit.

"That's me." Elena waved from her chair. "Elena Jacobsen. I'd stand, but-"

"That's fine. I am Red XIII. Let's have a look at that leg, shall we?"

Wincing, Elena slid her foot off the table and onto the ground. "It bent backwards, or nearly, when the Shinra building came down."

Humming thoughtfully to himself, the lion sat before the knee, sniffed it, and closed his eyes. The material hanging in the headpiece he wore began to glow tropical green.

"You've certainly strained something here," he murmured, eyes still closed. "I can't tell if anything's torn, but it won't be quick to heal either way."

Elena's face was carefully neutral, but a certain tightness around the nostrils, a thinning of the lips gave her away. This would mean at least, at _least_ a temporary retirement and re-application to the Turks. A Turk's body was their income. To lose use of any of it was to lose your position.

Then again, Reno remembered belatedly, Shinra wasn't really in a position to be hiring or firing anyone.

"I want to brace it for a few days so the swelling can come and go, and then we can look at treatment options," Red XIII continued.

That got Reno's full attention. "Wait- A few _days_?" he exclaimed. "Who said anything about being here a few _days_?"

Three disparaging looks didn't do much to improve his mood.

"What the fuck is this?" Suddenly he was on his feet, shouting. "Am I the only one who remembers where we are? These people are supposed to be our _enemies_! We've been fighting them for months and now we're all supposed to sit down and pass the potions? This is bullshit!"

With the last sentence, a jolt of pain lanced through his temples, bright white and crackling. His stomach lurched, he dropped back into his chair, held his head, and concentrated hard on not puking all over the shiny conference room table. When his eyes finally condescended to open, he had an hallucinatory close-up of something black and shiny. It receded and became Red XIII's nose.

"What's the matter?" he husked.

"Idiot's got a concussion," Rude's voice echoed in his head. "Overdid it."

Reno tried to speak through the pain, but all that came out was a groan.

A flash of blue, a murmured spell, and the pain washed away in a cool wave. It waited behind his brain, held in place by the Cure spell. "Shit," he whispered.

"Reno." Red XIII stared intently at him. "I understand how you feel, but you have to try not to strain yourself. The concussion isn't bad, but it you aggravate it, you could do yourself permanent harm. Understand?"

"Yeah," he smiled crookedly. "I bet you're as happy to have us here as I am, right?"

Red made a husky sneeze noise Reno took as a laugh. "I suppose so. Now." He turned back to the group. "Rude, don't use those fingers; Elena, keep the weight off that leg. Keep the knee iced, and elevated, and take 100 milligrams of anti-inflammatory pills every six hours. Stay here and I'll try and to find someone to fit you for a crutch. Reno, I'll find you some ibuprofen for those ribs. Any questions?"

Three heads shook.

"All right, then. Feel free to explore the airship, but stay out of the cockpit."

"Thank you," Elena murmured.

"Certainly."

Red XIII shuffled out of the room, followed closely by Rude. "Going to find the can," he muttered as the door whooshed shut behind him.

Elena watched it close, her back to Reno. There was a long silence.

Well, Reno didn't do silence so well. For that matter, neither did Elena, or at least not usually. "Something wrong?" he asked.

"Not really. Are you upset with me?"

"About being stuck here? That's not your fault."

"Okay." Her chin dropped to her chest.

Okay, now he _really _felt like a shmuck. "I wasn't yelling at you. Linney, really. Elena. Sorry."

"No, really, I'm just tired." She coughed halfheartedly, a sound that brought back memories of underground darkness and dust.

Reno sighed, bringing a pang from ribs too recently Cured. "Fuck, I wish those meds would get here."

"Me, too."

Someone rapped perfunctorily on the door, then swaggered in like he owned the room. Which he did. Cid Highwind, a length of pipe and rubber tubing in one hand, a cigarette in the other, was wearing the specific grimace of someone who hated his passengers, but knew the captain's job was to make everyone feel comfortable, if not safe.

"Brought you pills," he growled at Reno.

"Alle-freakin'-luia."

The pilot gestured the rubber tubing and pipe in Elena's general direction. "Here to fit you for a crutch."

"Okay."

Highwind leaned the rubber and pipe against the table, fished in a pocket of his coveralls and pulled out a pill bottle. Reno caught it awkwardly, stood, and lurched toward the door. At the moment, he never wanted to see a member of AVALANCHE again.

"Where're you off to?" Highwind's voice was the careful blend of caution -Reno was a self-made thief- and courtesy- someone had probably told him to play nice.

"Gonna find some water." At some point, Reno probably would have been amused by the pilot's discomfort, but he could feel his pulse in his temples and echoing down his ribs. All he wanted, besides to get off this ship, was to lie down and die for a little while.

"Head's on your left," Highwind was cut off by the automatic door, much to Reno's relief.

Rude had already cleared out of the bathroom. It was antiseptic white and steel, but it smelled like chocobo greens and musk. There was a stall right next door, but Reno didn't hear any of the shuffling and nervous chatter he usually associated with chocobos. Anarchists, hero mercenaries, and chocobo farmers too? He couldn't take any more of this contradiction crap.

Tossing back the pills and a mouthful of water, Reno teetered back out to the huge main room. Someone had set out a pile of self-inflating bedrolls under the staircase. Reno picked one up and pulled the tab.

He fell on the mattress while it was still inflating, feeling one shoulder hit the ground and elicit an extra special burst of complaint from his ribs. Muttering an expletive, he rolled onto his back and stared up at the viewports. The sky was smoky blue-black, studded with stars. Reno checked his watch; ten-thirty. He'd never gone to bed before midnight that he could remember.

The painkillers were kicking in with a warm, furry glow.

He'd make tonight an exception.

Something by his ear, warm and throbbing like a heartbeat. His first thought was of his mother, his second that his mother had never smelled like plastic and steel.

Reno came awake all at once, sweaty and overwarm in his shirt, pants, and blankets. The rubber pillow of the bedroll was sticky with sweat when he moved, so he sat up, shoving to one side and rolling painfully onto the blessedly cold steel of the deck. The heartbeat chugging he'd heard were the engines of the _Highwind_ as it slid through the night.

It was dark as the devil's heart in here.

The obsidian and mother of pearl hands of his watch glowed in the dark. One forty-five. Reno sighed. It wasn't just him- it was too damn hot in here.

Sitting up, he realized why. All of AVALANCHE was sound asleep on the floor. Rude and Elena were nowhere to be seen- _must still be in the conference room,_ he thought. The odds of AVALANCHE letting them in the cockpit, even to sleep, were about as good Hojo developing a religious vocation.

Why hadn't they woken him to move in with Rude and Elena? If he was them, no way he'd trust himself to sleep next to himself. _Wait..._ That made no sense. Bottom line, they were idiots to all fall asleep near a Turk. Not that he was going to fuck with them at all, but still, it was the principal of the thing!

Reno scratched his head, cracked his neck contemplatively. _Speaking of fucking with things..._

He'd always wondered what the cockpit of an airship looked like.

He stood silently, picking his way out from under the staircase, and felt for the handrail in the near-pitch darkness. Maybe AVALANCHE just hadn't seen him under the stairs to make him move, he thought belatedly.

Someone had left the door to the cockpit unlocked. Reno grinned. _Some people're just asking for it._

The cockpit was built in two layers, a high viewing deck and a small bay to the rear that looked like it contained an on-ship diagnostic system. Reno whistled appreciatively. Scrappy as it looked, the ship could probably run herself for a week or two.

"What are you doing here?"

"Holy-" Reno's feet reconnected with the deck; he must have jumped, but he couldn't remember. Groping desperately for a nightstick he wasn't wearing, he spun to face the huge viewports. "Who the hell is that?"

A dark shape unfolded from the pilot's seat, sliding out from under a blanket or a cloak. Tall, long haired, probably male.

"Valentine," Reno croaked. Cleared his throat and tried again. "Don't you ever sleep?"

Valentine stepped forward, throwing his cloak over one shoulder. "I'm on watch. Cid likes having someone up here in case the autopilot malfunctions."

"Or in case nosy Turks come poking around."

Valentine raised one black eyebrow sardonically.

"Thought so." Just to spite him, Reno strode around the taller man and plopped himself down in the pilot's seat. "Mmm, leather."

To his surprise, Vincent just turned and sat in the co-pilot's chair, carefully arranging his left hand so the needle-tipped claws didn't puncture the fabric, and proceeded to stare out the viewports like no one else was there. Well, if he didn't want to talk, Reno was fine with that. He could sit here, silently, not doing anything, just... watching. Watching the stars. Quietly. Silently, even. He could be as silent as the freakin' grave. That was fine with him.

"So," Reno cracked his knuckles elaborately. "Sleepy yet?"

For a moment he thought Valentine would ignore him, but then: "Aren't you?"

"No, I mean- you should be. War's over, hail the conquering hero, et cetera. Shouldn't you be sleeping the sleep of the winner?"

A minimal shrug.

"I mean, no rest for the wicked, right?"

Again.

"So if the wicked can't rest, the good should be able to, right? I mean, if you ignore the whole subjective part of good and evil, you guys blew up Meteor, killed Sephiroth, saved the damsel, you know, the whole nine-"

"Reno." Vincent turned to look him full in the face. "Did you take too many potions?"

Reno stared back. "I'm not high, and if I was, it would only be because I took everything the furball gave me."

"Then why are you talking so much?"

"I _always_ talk this much!"

He couldn't tell in the low light, but he thought Valentine rolled his eyes.

"Fuck you, okay, vampire?"

"Why are you here, Reno?"

"Why am I here? You could answer that, shithead! Because of you! If I hadn't been unconscious, I wouldn't have let you lot drag me onto this hunk of flying rust, because you would've done me a bigger favor leaving me there in the crater of the Shinra building to die!"

His outcry echoed off the glass, metal, the control panels glittering like Midgar city lights, hung in the air, then dropped and died.

There was a long moment of silence.

In Reno's experience, Valentine had virtually no facial expression. What little he was wearing now had changed oh-so-slightly. After a moment, his lips flattened.

"I was a Turk," he said. Reno's jaw dropped. "Thirty years ago." Reno's jaw dislocated in an attempt to drop lower. "You could say I'm- older than I look. My last assignment was to Nibelheim. It ended up being my last assignment because I was... injured, but if I hadn't been, I would have been retired anyway upon returning to Midgar. I'd- I was not in favor with my CO. When I went to Nibelheim, my contract was under my own name."

Reno winced. Security guards were rented out from Shinra under their own names instead of the company's. Telling a Turk to sign himself out was the final nail in the career coffin, a huge dishonor and the last step before a Turk was given, as the PR department had liked to say, 'involuntary retirement.'

"I went to Nibelheim on my last assignment. Probably feeling like you now. I felt hopeless. Afraid. But more than anything-"

"Angry." Reno ground his teeth. _So friggin' angry-_

"Yes. But what I learned from that was, even if I wasn't a Turk anymore, I still had all the qualifications. Do you understand? Shinra may be gone, but you don't need Shinra to still be the Turks. The nature of the job may change, but-"

"How can you say that?" Reno interrupted. "At least you the knew the Turks still _existed_. Tseng is dead, the President is dead, the job is-"

Valentine got a full facial expression, and it stopped Reno cold.

"What are you talking about?" Vincent asked. "Tseng is alive."


	3. Rude: Fallen Stars

Rude crossed his arms over his chest and tried to ignore the chaos his coworkers were making of the tiny stall.

The room, he assumed, had been converted to a sickroom from a chocobo stall. It smelled like chocobo, and it looked like someone had forgotten to sweep all the straw out of the corners; not that Rude was ungrateful, just... allergic. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand.

Reno darted past him, shouted a vaguely medical question at Cid Highwind, who snorted and lit another cigarette. Rude withheld opinion. Just closed his eyes in lieu of his sunglasses, and let a little more of his body weight rest against the wall.

Reno had woken him, Elena, and most of AVALANCHE at two-thirty AM by caterwauling out of the cockpit, down the stairs, through the main room, and into the conference room. Rude had awakened to what sounded like someone being slaughtered, or possibly raised from the dead. Most of the screams were along the lines of "He's _alive_! Wake up, you guys, he's ALLLLLLIVE!"

And lo, he was.

Rude opened one eye, just to check, and yes, the same sable/black head was pillowed carefully on an air mattress, with blankets tucked almost lovingly around him. Tseng. Tseng was alive.

He'd first seen Tseng in much the same condition, so newly promoted to Turkhood his suit practically shined. Sound asleep in the room across the hall from President Shinra in Junon's fanciest hotel, the only person in a two-bed room because the CO was in with the President and the two ranking Turks were sharing a room. It made sense, then, that the assassins went for Tseng first.

Seventeen at the time, Rude was slowly carving a niche for himself in Junon's underworld. Because of his silent observations, short answers, and the questions he ignored, he'd already earned his street name. He generally worked alone, although he did just enough grunt work for a few gangs to be officially under their protection when he was on their grounds. Balanced assets, he'd learned, were a key part of fraud. Pragmatic thinking went hand in hand with balance; without them, you couldn't rely on yourself. Above all, Rude relied on himself.

At the moment, he was the golden boy of nearly every major gang in Junon. Rude's gift, by it's very principle, had taken a long time to be recognized citywide, but when it finally had been, Rude owned the entire underworld. Rude's gift, which was used to great effect, was simply to be unnoticeable. Not so limiting a term as 'silent', 'stealthy', or 'plain', but simply... not apparent. Perhaps a combination of plain features, quiet voice, and small action, Rude made his living as a bodyguard, intimidator, and general thing that went bump in the night. Still, he didn't have any gang tattoos, which meant no room and board, and a guy had to eat.

Thus Rude the thief was born. Hotel card keys were the easiest to jimmy locks with, so Rude spent much of his free time wandering the floors of the Junon Red Phoenix Suites, following the housekeeping carts to find empty rooms. There was always something nice, watches or jewelry or Rude's personal favorite, perfume. The top three floors were VIP floors, which were usually occupied by rich tourists, visiting dignitaries, or businessmen. The wonderful thing about stealing from rich people, Rude knew, was that if you were careful and stole very little, very expensive things, there were usually no suspicions. Maybe people just thought they'd lost things. Whatever the reason, all the guests were the same, and all the rooms were generally empty between 4 PM and 2 AM, the top business and party hours. Rude's favorite was the top floor, so he usually went there first.

Really, he and Tseng met by accident.

_He spent a happy ten minutes rifling through toiletries by touch and scent. Someone liked expensive cologne; probably the dark-haired man snoring lightly in the bedroom. Well, it would smell just as nice in a soda can on the corner of 3rd and Marsh..._

_The doorknob rattled. Rude spun, hands full of bottles, and stared with horrified dismay as the latch clicked and, mockingly slow, the door swung open. Survival instinct had him in the shower, crouched behind the curtain as three black-clad men slipped into the room and shut the door behind them. _

_Closing his eyes, Rude prayed._

_When a crash and a muffled yowl of pain sounded from the other room, Rude considered his prayers answered and beat a hasty retreat._

_Or tried to. He'd barely heard the latch click when a body slammed him into said door, shoving it closed over his hand. Rude felt something crunch like no body part should and screamed, a bitten-off cry he stifled with his other hand. Crammed between the door and a body which shuddered like someone was hitting it with a cinderblock (and Rude would know), all he could do was hang onto the doorframe and try to keep the pressure off his undeniably broken wrist. _

_Finally the body behind him sagged to the floor. Rude sighed, relieved, and tried to open the door the rest of the way._

_His black shirt caught up around his throat, chocked him. He was dragged backwards and over, a hard, heavy knee pressing into his chest._

_Warm breath by his ear, a light Wutain accent. "If you make a noise, I'll break your sternum and collapse your lungs."_

_Rude nodded desperately. The knee pivoted so his captor was facing his feet. _I could kick... yeah, and die slowly when my ribcage broke.

_Something round and hard clicked around his ankle. Handcuff. Extra-large, universal use style. This guy knew his shit. _

_The door closed and, after a moment of perfect darkness, the light went on._

_The man who had been asleep was tall, early twenties, with a chin-length fall of dark hair and a face like a shark- angular, composed, beautiful, very sharp teeth. If Rude hadn't heard him snoring two minutes ago, he wouldn't have thought this man ever slept. His eyes were clear and focused. _

_As he stood over Rude, an expression furrowed the clear brow._

"_Who would send a teenager against a Turk?" he asked of the air._

_Rude wasn't blessed with a public education, but every child who'd slept in a gutter had heard of the Turks, the faceless, fearless assassin-cum-bodyguards who worked directly under President Shinra. He hadn't been afraid until this moment. Rude shook his head so hard his teeth chattered._

_The man raised an eyebrow. "Before we get started, let me remind you that there are seven bones in your wrist. One of them is already broken. Lie to me and I'll break more."_

_Rude nodded._

"_Who sent you?"_

"_No one." _

_Kneeling by Rude's head, the man took his right hand and held it, very gently, between his own. Images of guillotines, of falling anvils, played through his head. He swallowed._

"_Are you telling me the truth?"_

"_Yes," he said, and meant it more than anything he'd ever said. _

_Miraculously, his wrist remained intact._

"_Why are you here?"_

_Rude swallowed. Two fingers applied gentle pressure to his broken wrist and he gasped, entire body arching against the chain, away from the screaming firey pain stabbing up his arm._

"_To steal!"_

_The pressure didn't stop. "Not to kill me?"_

"_Didn't know you were here!" _

_The pain faded like a torch carried into fog. Rude cradled his injured hand, gasping for air and cohesion. When the red streaks cleared from his vision, someone was knocking at the door. His captor spoke through the chain lock for a moment, then bolted the door again. He knelt again by Rude's head. "Only to steal," he murmured to himself. His eyes were both charcoal gray and very brown. _

_A black-clad form rose behind the eyes, behind the sleep-mussed hair, and before Rude could even open his mouth, the one man left conscious slammed the heel of his shoe down across the back of his captor's head. _

_Rude pulled his knee up towards his chest, straining against the handcuff chain as the dark haired man collapsed forward on top of him. Rude had time to get a whiff of the very expensive cologne he'd been stealing five minutes ago before the man was pulled off his face. He strained his neck to see the black-clad man dragging his captor between the two beds. Rude reached, straining with his good arm to grab the man's leg and pull as hard as he could. The handcuff chain snapped an instant before the man lost his balance and fell, kicking and swearing, pretty much on top of Rude's face. _That's twice in thirty seconds,_ he thought as a flailing heel connected with his nose. Reaching up, he caught the man's ankle, turning it until the man was forced to roll over. Rude slid on top of him, dropping his weight on the man's chest. _

_He felt the man fumbling near his waist, pulling something from his pocket. The neat _snik!_ of a switchblade was unmistakable in such close quarters. Rude shoved down, pushing himself off the man and, resting his weight on his forearms, pinned the man's arms to the floor. The man bent an elbow at an unlikely angle and slashed, slicing Rude's side just along his ribs. Rude hissed, let the weight off of that side just a little. The man surged up, slamming his face into Rude's forehead. When the purple and red faded from his vision, he was lying on the floor, tasting blood and watching two pairs of legs sticking out from behind a bed. Both were kicking, then came a soft, anticlimactic _pop_ and one pair fell limp to the floor._

_Rude's captor reappeared from behind the bed, wiping blood from his mouth. He came over, knelt by Rude's head, took his pulse. _

_Rude coughed through the smoking crater his face had become. "I'm alive."_

"_Ah." The man pulled open a drawer, broke open an elixir capsule on Rude's face. He felt swelling shrink, cuts close, and what would have been a fantastic black eye vanish entirely. He coughed, spat a blood clot, and sat up. The world rocked uncertainly, then settled. Suddenly, he felt like his entire body had been ground between broken glass and gravel. He winced. _

"_You'll be sore in the morning. That wrist is broken."_

_Rude nodded._

_The dark gray/brown eyes narrowed. "You're- a street kid. That's why you shave your head?"_

_It was a well-known fact that professional thieves shaved their heads to give anyone who found them one less thing to grab onto. The fad had recently become popular in the streets, as well. Rude nodded._

"_So you can't afford a doctor to set your wrist."_

_Rude shook his head._

"_Wait." Rising, the man went to the phone, made a quick call. _When's he going to kill me?_ Rude wondered. _

_Someone knocked on the door: twice quickly, then twice slowly. The man opened the door and admitted a petite dark-skinned woman, who crossed to kneel by Rude. She seized his arm, set the wrist with an excruciating motion of her thumb, and, with a significant look at his captor, left._

_Rude lay gasping on the floor, wondering what had happened. _

_A cool, balmy Cure washed down his arm, sealing the set bone. Rude exhaled, feeling muscles he didn't even know about unclench. A warm, dry hand closed around his arm, lifted him to his feet. He found himself eye-to-eye with his captor. Who bowed. _

"_Tseng Hishino."_

_Rude wet his lips. Bowed back. "Rude."_

_After a moment, Tseng ran a hand through his hair._

"_So, were you planning on keeping my cologne?"_

Tseng had gotten him into the Junon military, then into Shinra securities. It wasn't long before he was transferred to Midgar, first to the Shinra building, then into the Turk training corps. Apparently Tseng had been impressed by the young man who'd freed himself from handcuffs, fought off an assailant with a broken wrist and a head injury, and saved the life of a Shinra employee when he could have run away. Shinra had been reassured, if not impressed, by that last bit. Rude moved through the ranks with record speed.

And now things had come full circle. Rude stood against the cold wall, arms crossed like he could keep the future out of himself. Tseng was silent and sleeping on. Lucky him.

Rude was not a man much prone to fear. He could take care of himself and probably someone else, as long as necessary, and he knew that. But not in a time this uncertain, not Reno and Elena. He was next in line for the Turk leadership, and God help him, he wasn't ready. Thank God for Tseng. He wasn't ready.

He stood by the wall, then sat against the wall, then dozed by the makeshift bed. He woke every few hours when Reno or Elena stopped in to check on Tseng. Each of them glanced at Rude, silent, and left again. They carried an air of quiet wonder with them, like observers of a miracle, a religious experience, a fallen star. At one point Reno squatted across the mattress from Rude, stared at him over the bundle blankets. Opened his mouth to speak, closed it, stood, and left. Rude watched, smiled tiredly. Reno may have only six months less time on the job than he did, but sometimes it felt like six years.

The sheetmetal floor of the main room went from silvery black to indigo to mother of pearl to rose as dawn crept in, and the dark form on the mattress never moved. At some point he must have slept, really slept, because when he woke there was a mug of lukewarm coffee next to him and his watch read 9:06. The coffee was black with one sugar, just the way he liked it- Reno or Elena must have overseen its brewing. It was comforting, in a bizarre way, to have his own coffee next to his boss, unconscious or not. Rude sipped, swallowed, then gulped. Someone –_Reno_– had added a shot of Bone Village brandy, and frankly, Rude thought he deserved it. Not like anyone was around to cite him for drinking on the job-

Frighteningly pale fingers closed around his wrist, pressing bones together and making him gasp.

"Smells like... alcohol," Tseng rasped, his eyes the only color in his face. "Can I... have some?"

"Rude? I brought you some-" Elena stopped dead in the doorway. True credit to her Turk training, the plate in her hands wobbled but did not fall. "-toast. _Tseng_. Sir. Tseng. RENO!"

Front the sounds of breaking crockery, splashing liquid, and startled curses, Reno had been making his own coffee. Turk-issue half boots clattered down the stairs and Reno slid into the doorway.

"What's wro- Oh."

Rude handed his boss the coffee mug, sat back on his heels. Tseng's eyes played over all three of them, left to right and back again.

"I see you three have managed adequately in my absence."

Three heads bobbed mechanically.

Tseng put the mug down, sat up, fell back with his hands over his stomach. "What- Ah." He swallowed, sweat beading on his face. "Sephiroth."

Rude bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood.

"Sephiroth is dead," Elena said with such grim satisfaction Rude would have believed she'd torn out Sephiroth's living heart bare-handed and brought it back as a souvenir. With some regret, she added: "Cloud Strife killed him."

Tseng lay back against the pillow, creases smoothing out of his brow. "I see I've missed a great deal. Please, bring me up to speed."

The three junior Turks exchanged nervous glances.

"Want some toast?" Elena finally offered.


	4. Tseng: Honor and Empathy

Fully awake for the first time in weeks, Tseng lay on his mattress and watched the steel ceiling change colors in the coming day. He'd finally gotten a straight story out of Reno, Rude, and Elena after about an hour or so- and been reminded why he asked them to write individual reports, ye _gods_ they liked to contradict each other- and was taking a few minutes after waking to let it all sink in. Sephiroth was dead. Meteor had fallen, and with it the Shinra building. The President was dead.

Something acidic and sore uncurled in his stomach, just beneath the sixty-eight stitches holding his belly together. There would be a similar wound from the ritual disembowelment he would have been required to perform had Shinra been a Wutain company. It wasn't a punishment, it was a gift to Wutain bodyguards because, as the saying went, a bodyguard without a body to guard was only guarding his own at the expense of another. They loved their nonsensical, rhythmic mantras in Wutai, and Tseng knew them all. This one was a perfect bullseye. For a bodyguard in Wutai, outliving your charge was a huge dishonor.

He hadn't been back home in years, but Tseng was Wutain from his callused heels (Wutain children went barefoot until age ten) to his third-eye tattoo (every mother inked their children to protect them from evil spirits), and Leviathan shun his soul if he denied his country when it asked for his life.

Tseng lay on the deck of his enemy's airship and thought about the past, the future, and wherever he was now.

Someone knocked briskly on the door, poked her head in, and entered timidly. Elena smiled apologetically, torso in a perpetual half-bow until she sat next to his mattress.

"Red XIII would like to look at your- wound, sir," she said quietly.

Speaking was too much work, so he nodded cursorily. Apparently Hojo's ex-specimen was acting as medic for AVALANCHE. Apparently Aeris had been killed shortly after escaping the Temple of the Ancients. Tseng cracked a few knuckles, caught himself, and stopped. He saw Elena glance at him before she opened the door to admit the red lion.

"Awake, I see," he growled at Tseng. Tseng nodded, a little uncomfortably. Over the last few weeks he'd come out of a drugged stupor countless midnights to find the beast pressed close against his side, reminding him painfully of his childhood dogs in shape and texture. A strange, emotional place, the wasteland between conciousness and coma.

"How is your stomach today?"

"Fine," Tseng rasped, pulling the sheet down to his waist to show the jagged wound centered in purple and red bruising that marred his abdomen. Behind Red XIII, Elena winced, letting a puff of air hiss out from behind her teeth. Tseng caught her eye, held it as Red XIII sniffed, prodded, and probed the wound and the skin around it for signs of infection. To her it probably looked painful and graphic, but, in truth, it was a lot less raw than it had been. Three weeks ago, Barret and Vincent had had to hold him down when Tifa put the stitches in. He had years of wounds in his memory, but a gut stab was the most painful by far.

The prodding stopped, and Tseng relaxed minutely.

"Coming along nicely," Red XIII said, giving the wound a final sniff. "You'll have quite a scar, but we can probably take the stitches out before the end of the week."

Tseng craned his neck to look down at his stomach, saw the shiny scar tissue forming around the edges of the thick black thread. Dark reddish-purple; this wouldn't be a nice clean white scar.

"Thank you," he heard Elena say to Red XIII's departing haunches.

"Thank you," he whispered, trying not to move his stomach at all.

The door shut behind the flaming tail and he and Elena were alone. She returned to kneel by his pillow.

"Do you need anything, sir?"

"No, thank you, I'm fine."

She smiled slightly, reached into a pocket. "I brought you a potion."

He smiled back, chagrined. Any Turk would know that when one of their own said 'I'm fine, just let me sleep' they really meant 'I'm in horrific pain, please cast Sleep on me and help me escape this godforsaken wasteland that my body has become.'

"Thank you," Tseng broke the capsule, sprinkled the potion over his stomach. With a wound this severe, a potion wouldn't do any significant repair, but it did loosen the muscles and numb the nerves.

"You're welcome, sir."

That little worm of despair uncurled again in his stomach. "Elena-"

"Hmm?" Pulling her uninjured knee to her chest, Elena pivoted to sit parallel to the mattress, wounded leg lying out beside him.

Tseng wet his lips. "You don't need to call me 'sir' anymore, Elena. Shinra is gone. I have no real rank."

"Yes si- Tseng. Okay, Tseng."

Tseng relaxed against the pillow. "You tore something in your knee, correct?"

Elena's eyes flickered to the rough pipe-and-tape splint she wore, then back to him. "Yes si- Yes."

"Reno's concussed. Rude broke fingers."

"Could've been a lot worse."

Anger needled through Tseng's skull. "The President is dead."

"Are you sure?" Elena's brow furrowed. "He could have escaped- Maybe he wasn't even in the building when-"

"The President is _dead_, Elena!" His exclamation echoed off the walls, sent a pulse of pain through Tseng's head. He clapped a hand over his stitches, feeling for fresh blood or torn thread. Nothing. When he opened his eyes, Elena's were wide, her mouth open like she wanted to call for help.

"Listen," he rasped, mostly to keep her attention. The last thing he needed was all of AVALANCHE running in to find Elena screaming over his half-naked body and sixty-eight perfect stitches. "the President had a watch identical to the watches we're given when we become Turks. Its communicator function was linked to mine. He could signal me if he needed me… and he hasn't." Tseng bit off an extremely rude 'What does that suggest to you?' It wasn't her fault the President was dead.

The blonde woman's face fell. "I see. So… what now?"

Tseng closed his eyes, reached a hand up to shove the hair off his face. "Elena, when my stitches are out, your knee is healed, and Reno stops seeing twice as many fingers as we hold up, _then_ we can talk about what now, okay?"

Elena's face fell. "Okay si- Tseng."

Tseng looked up at the steel ceiling, took a slow breath. He liked Elena, as a coworker, as a companion, as- something. He'd asked her out to dinner already, had wanted to start something with her before the world went to hell. He still wanted to. She was smart, kind, a great shot… Sometimes, though, her hell-or-high-water optimism, not to mention her naivete about some things any other Turk would intuit instantly, drove him absolutely insane. Sometimes he forgot, and spoke down to her. This conversation was a prime example. Of course, now her feelings were hurt, and Tseng had found hurting Elena's feelings was a prescription for a guilty conscience.

"Why were you cracking your knuckles earlier?"

The question startled him and he jumped, or at least lurched generally upwards. "I beg your pardon?"

Elena was staring directly into his face for the first time all morning. "Why were you cracking your knuckles earlier, Tseng?"

Apparently he _had_ heard her correctly. "I- They were stiff."

"I've seen you crack them before. When you're remembering something. Usually something sad."

She was right, Tseng realized. He'd never noticed that particular habit before. He'd have to take care of that- Turks weren't supposed to have habits. Not that he was, technically, a Turk anymore. Shit.

"Sir?"

He shrugged. "I suppose so. Yes."

"What were you thinking of, s-Tseng?"

The ceiling was mottled gray, striped in silver and white.

"Tseng?"

Tseng cleared his throat. Aeris was dead.

"Aeris- I'd known her since we were both young. We were friends. I- I'll miss her."

"You two were-"

"We dated for a few months, when we were teenagers. But… we were too different. She was raised to serve the Planet."

"You were raised to serve your people," Elena pointed out when it was clear he wasn't going to go on. "Nothing wrong with that."

Tseng nodded. "I know."

"But now you wonder," Elena guessed. "if it could have ended differently."

Tseng nodded again, beginning to feel like a puppet. "You're a good guesser," he said, for want of anything intelligent.

Elena grinned, and it seemed to cast a glow comparable to the dawn sky. "I have a knack for empathy, I guess. I can read people."

Tseng's eyelids were growing heavy, despite the morning sun lighting the ceiling. "That's what-" he yawned hugely. "-Excuse me. That's what your personnel file said. That you relate to people."

The smile grew a little more chagrined. "Really? Bet they loved reading that."

"It wasn't that bad. The current captain mentioned something about feminine wiles, I think… There hadn't been a female Turk since I had joined. We decided we could use you in information-gathering missions…" another yawn. "Excuse me."

Elena rolled her eyes. "And by 'information-gathering missions' you mean snuggling up to politicians at black-tie dinners, flattering, giggling, and sleeping my way to the top. Yeah, that's what I joined the military for."

"Actually, the file mentioned that. It commended you for notoriously denying the more persistent of your… suitors."

"Oh yeah?" Elena's gaze dropped to the floor, a rueful smile shadowing her mouth. "Sometimes I wonder if they pick the most deprived SOLDIERs to instruct Turk basic training… 'Elena the Iceburg', they called me."

Tseng couldn't think of a name less appropriate, but didn't say anything. Sleep danced around the edge of his eyes, and he yawned again. "Excuse me."

Elena laughed, began pulling herself to her feet. "Okay, you've excused yourself three times, sir, and still not gone to sleep. Excuse _me_, but I'm going to let you get some rest."

Tseng shrugged, watched her go to one knee, prop herself up on her crutch, and use it to lever herself to her feet. Despite the slow awkwardness of her motions, there was something oddly graceful in them, rhythmic. Tseng thought of cranes, of otters climbing ashore. He slipped into memories of misty Wutai mornings on the coast, in the small, haphazard house of his childhood. Cranes would wade in the reeds, dipping down, then up, watching, always watching for something far in the noncommittal mist. _What are you looking for?_ he wanted to ask Elena, but by then he was asleep.

He woke to an unfamiliar metallic sound that sent him lunging for his attacker, one hand groping under his pillow for his gun-

Spasms of red and yellow pain killed any hope of adequate defense, dropped him prone on the deck, body arching automatically away from the cold steel against his stitches.

"Gods, Tseng, please, relax-"

Small, sturdy hands grasped his shoulders, pulled him back over onto the mattress. He stared through the bars of red and black pain on his vision at the chocolatey brown head bent over him.

"Tseng. Look at me. You okay?"

He could feel his heartbeat in every stitch on his stomach. He nodded. For a moment there was a neat needlepoint laser picking its way down the wound, then Tifa sat back on her heels, withdrew her finger from under the thread.

"You didn't tear any stitches, and a good thing, too." She smiled to soften the tease. "I spent long enough putting them in."

Tseng dredged up a half-smile.

"Who'd you think I was, Jenova come to harvest your organs?"

"Reflex."

"Oh. I brought you dinner."

He checked his watch, which glowed 2045 almost smugly. _So late already…_ "Was I asleep?"

"Yeah. Don't look so surprised. Here- Let me help you." A hand under his shoulder and an arm to balance on, and Tifa helped him sit slowly upright. Tseng exhaled between his teeth, concentrating on how hungry he was. Tifa handed him the chopsticks and he took a careful clump of something yellow and brown that looked like it had once been rice-based.

"You have a long recovery coming, Tseng. Don't be ashamed to ask for help, trust me, you'll recover faster if you just take it easy."

It would probably be rude to smell it… Tseng took a tentative bite. Swallowed. "Wow," he managed a moment later. "Wow. Who made this?"

"Reno and Elena tried to… but I caught them. Kinda took over."

"It's excellent." There were peppers in it, he realized belatedly, and coughed. It hurt a lot, but the spice/butter/rice taste was more than enough to make up for it. "Spicy."

"Yeah, I figured it would be boring without- Oh. Tseng, uh, don't freak out or anything, but you've slipped a stitch."

He glanced down and yes, indeed, there was a thin trail of blood seeping out from between two abdominal muscles. _Shit._

"Here, lie back down and I'll fix it." Rising, Tifa retrieved a first-aid kit from a tack trunk which, he assumed, had once held chocobo saddles. Tseng leaned back on his elbows, wincing as freshly-torn skin stretched. Tifa knelt beside him, a threaded needle in one hand.

"Looks like it's actually a couple… Want a local?"

"No, thank you."

"If you say so, you're welcome."

Tseng stared at the ceiling and doubled numbers in his head as the needle played sadistic connect-the-dots with his abdomen.

Tifa had just said something.

"I'm sorry?"

"I said, you're gonna have one hell of a scar."

He glanced down, then up at her furrowed brow. As though she felt his gaze, she looked up from tying the stitches off, smiled self-consciously. "But I guess it wouldn't be a first, then, would it? Your line of work and all."

He shook his head. "The first time I was injured this badly, my CO told me to think of scars as just proof I lived through it."

Tifa shrugged, cut the thread neatly. She wanted to say something, he could tell, but had no idea what.

"Turks must expect scars," she finally mumbled.

"To some extent, yes." To tell the truth, he'd never really thought about it. "Better than the alternative."

"What?" she laughed, and to Tseng's well-tuned ears it sounded bitter. "Not being wounded at all?"

"A scar in the line of duty is better than health and dishonor." He picked up his chopsticks again, found his appetite had waned. "I didn't expect this one, if that's what you meant."

"One from Sephiroth, I meant." Standing, Tifa stowed the first aid kit back in its place.

"It's almost amusing," he thought aloud. "that in all the time he was missing, we just assumed he was dead. That death was the only thing that could sever his loyalty to Shinra. Now I wonder if he was ever loyal at all, or if he was just using the company, playing all of us for fools…"

His voice drifted off to blend with the airship hum.

"I have a Sephiroth scar," Tifa said.

"I bet you do." He chuckled wanly. "You killed him, after all."

"No. I mean, yes, but not from then. An… unexpected scar."

He raised an eyebrow, and before he could ask she'd pulled the low collar of her shirt down an inch to reveal a shiny, dark-red seam starting above one breast and sliding down between them.

"How?" Tseng asked, trying not to choke on rice and proud of the approximate steadiness of his voice.

"The Nibelheim mako reactor. The day- the day he disappeared, I guess."

He turned that over in his mind. "You were in the reactor with him?"

Tifa let go of her collar, covering the scar again although her thumb lingered to trace its path under the fabric. "I got this," she said. "the day he killed my father. Burned my town. Ended my childhood."

Reaching down, Tseng covered his wound with one hand, brought it away red. "I got this the day he tried to kill me. Tried to kill my charge. Ended my life as an honorable man."

Tifa's eyes locked with his, dark and dark, and understanding flowed like water between them. Here, too, was a person whose life had been sacrificed by fortune's cold hand, who had had to bid farewell to every familiar sight and scent to live the life of the one left behind. Tifa, if no one else, understood how heavy were the memories you blamed yourself for, the memories no one else had.

He was shaken out of thought by Tifa's small, callused hand coming to rest on his own large, scarred one. He met her gaze again and it was full of understanding.

"This is the hardest part," she said quietly. "Remembering and deciding what you're going to do next."

_I know what I'm going to do next, _he wanted to say. _I'm going to go home to Wutai and die with whatever honor I can salvage._

"It might seem like it now, but your life isn't over. There's plenty of need for a bodyguard in the world, from Costa Del Sol to the Gold Saucer. All you can do now is keep on going."

She didn't understand. Of course not- Tseng scolded himself for being disappointed. He cleared his throat, steepled his fingers over his tray.

"The most honor I can do the President," he said quietly. "is to end my li-"

The look of incredulity on Tifa's face was lit from below in electric blue. Tseng felt an odd vibration against his wrist, glanced down. His watch communicator was going off, flashing Rufus Shinra's personal color.


	5. Rufus: Up, Up, Up

Darkness.

Something burned, wet and spicy-red. He couldn't tell if he saw it or felt it, but he tasted it hot and copper in his wet mouth. The fingers of his right hand, the only one he could feel, were closed over his left wrist, squeezing and squeezing the dial on his watch like nuns squeezed holy beads. Everything was so far and so close, stroking his face like sandpaper cat tongues, the touch of a disinterested predator. If this was death- no, it couldn't be death, he believed in God and the Goddess, it couldn't be a lie after two decades of faith-

His own breath sobbed in his ears, a voice, high and childlike in the blackness asking after that first safe memory. Mother. Belatedly, he remembered his mother was dead. All mother were dead, death gaped like a screaming mouth at every doorway-

"Over here!"

The voice was new, foreign, male, and enough to clamp the jaws of Rufus Shinra so hard a tooth chipped.

"Somewhere… Are you sure-?"

"This is where the signal's comin' from, near as I kin figger-"

Rufus gasped, inhaled dust, choked impotently.

"Wait- D'you hear-?"

"Yes. Rufus!"

Rufus coughed, spat blood. "HERE!"

Something rumbled, clattered, and sparked above his head. He yipped, a bitten-off animal cry, then clamped his one good hand over his mouth. "Oh God," he whispered against it. "Oh God, oh God, someone, help me. Tseng. Help me."

"President Shinra! Sir! Keep talking!"

"HERE! I'M HERE! GOD-" He bit his own tongue, shivering and whimpering in the dark. _God, please, I'm down here, down in the dark and the silence, please, help me-_

A crash of nearby rubble and light pierced his tiny refuge like the sword of an angel. Rufus winced, his right eye burning and welling with tears almost immediately, but he kept staring although the light pulsed white, yellow, pink, red. Then it was blanked out by a dark shape, a long oval of human body.

A hand reached down. Fingers, blunt and callused, touched his face. Rufus lunged up, snatching at the arm behind them, ignoring the raw itching pain in his left arm, clasping and clasping and not letting go.

"President! Sir, hold on-"

Then he was being pulled, kicking hard against the remnants of an empire and emerging up, up, up into the light.


End file.
